Giuliani: There Was Some Good News For Christie In The Latest Letter

Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani (R) appeared on CNN Friday and argued that the latest revelations in the George Washington Bridge lane closures are not all bad for Gov. Chris Christie (R).

A lawyer for David Wildstein, a former Port Authority of New York and New Jersey executive, sent a letter Friday claiming that Christie knew about the lane closures as they were happening. Wildstein was the official who oversaw the lane closures, which caused a massive traffic jam in Fort Lee, N.J.

In response to the release of the Wildstein letter, the Christie administration issued a statement saying that the letter merely “confirms what the Governor has said all along – he had absolutely no prior knowledge of the lane closures before they happened and whatever Mr. Wildstein’s motivations were for closing them to begin with.”

Asked by CNN host Wolf Blitzer whether the competing documents constituted a “bombshell,” Giuliani argued that there was too much ambiguity to say.

“Well, I’m not sure it’s a bombshell, Wolf,” Giuliani said. “It’s a statement that creates a lot of ambiguity, some good for the governor, some that create questions. The part that’s good is it’s clear the governor didn’t know about it beforehand, so he didn’t plan it, right? The question is when did he find out about it? The letter is very ambiguous as to when he found out about it. The governor clearly found out about it from the newspapers, so he did know about it at some point. And Mr. Wildstein is very much wanting to get immunity from the government. And I suspect if Mr. Wildstein had a smoking gun, something you could describe really honestly as a bombshell, the government would have given him immunity. So he is negotiating for immunity. Who knows, he may even ratchet up his allegations in order to try to get immunity. So I think at this point it would be very, very hard to interpret all of these things and come to some kind of conclusion that the governor isn’t being forthright or that this really contradicts him.”

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Eric Lach is a reporter for TPM. From 2010 to 2011, he was a news writer in charge of the website?s front page. He has previously written for The Daily, NewYorker.com, GlobalPost and other publications. He can be reached at ericl@talkingpointsmemo.com